Thread: Online Gaming - an analysis

Something I had to do for a Yr12 assignment so don't laugh. Thought I may was well do something with it as it as it got an A for it. Some of the areas addressed I had to do to pass, even though the essay would have been better without them.



Introduction

PC gaming is something that has exploded in the last decade and given rise to a whole new culture and set of values among its users. Its evolution is a long and complicated one, relying on new innovations from gifted minds to move to the next level. The gaming culture has revolutionised the computer and entertainment industry and it only looks to get bigger.

History

There have been limited forms of gaming since the 1970's but the real story of the more modem genres begins in the early 1990's. The first real time strategy game was Dune1, based on the series of books. This was shortly followed by Warcraft 1, software giant Blizzard's first big title. These essentially revolutionised the face of PC games and forced the industry to focus on this new and more popular type rather than the turn based that had led the market for many years.

The story of the even more popular first person shooter genre started in 1992 when id software produced Wolfenstine 3D. Before this innovation only 2D shooters were available. This new game was a free game and was circulated many, many times on floppy disk as it was only 1.3MB. Everyone was out to try this game and it made id boss an instant millionaire. id soon produced Doom in 1993. It was also free but was also available to buy for people who did not have Internet access. It was also the birth of online gaming as it allowed people to directly connect their phone lines and play against each other. There are now 15 million copies of Doom floating around and hundreds of modifications made by individual gamers. Doom2 followed shortly but this could only be bought. It was more of the same but enhanced the popularity of the series and made id yet more money. In 1996 another breakthrough was made by id. It made Quake. This was the first truly 3D game with the ability to jump, look up and down and use mouse look. It also looked realistic unlike the cartooneyness of Doom.

At the same time the RTS world was progressing with the induction of Command and Conqueror which spawned a massive series of games that still continues. Warcraft 2 came out in the mid 1990's and was one of the most balanced of its time. The biggest single revolution came in 1997 when Ensemble Studios released Age of Empires. This was the first historical game with actual events placed into their single player campaigns. It set a trend that was to continue. In addition to AoE there was huge work being done by AoE massive software giant and publisher Microsoft was doing development into an online multiplayer network that would allow players to find and play each other online. Similar developments took place in the FPS world with id's development of online servers of 30 or so people fragging each other. This concept continued to expand into other games as companies began to make use of the new idea. MSN gaming zone was developed around 1998. It was web based and allowed people to meet in rooms and organise games. The script on zone would then launch the player's program and begin the game. This system is still insanely popular for RTS games. id released Quake2 in late 1997. It was an advance on Quake1 and had more models and characters that players could use and allowed for more customisation. Mods for the engines of q1 and q2 were coming up everywhere. These included Capture the Flag and Team Fortress. The creators of these games often were given jobs within companies like id to create official mods and get paid for it, many are still there. The biggest revolution in the gaming world came with the creation of Counter-strike, a mod of the 1999 Valve game Half Life. The creator was a bored computer science student who made it to play with his friends. It became VERY popular and Valve bought it from him for 3 million dollars US. It is still the most popular online game and revolutionaries the gaming culture, it set that stage for realism to increase in popularity, sparking the production of counter-terrorism and WW2 based games. Quake 3 was another important advance and is still the most popular unrealistic FPS since its creation in 2000. It allowed a massive level of customisation and led to the creation of elite cyber athletes as it was so suited to tournament play.

The RTS AoE2: Age of Kings cemented the favouritism with historical realistic games over the fantasy games such as Warcraft, which still remains very popular unlike most of the other fantasy RTS. Other games such as Empire Earth have been made since then and game developers are making their own online gaming services.

Social and Personal Effects

When people think gaming, they tend to think of all the negatives and ignore the positives. But there really aren't that many negatives, as I will now point out. Mostly they are exaggerated or only happen if the individual user is negligent, which is often not the case.

RSI: Repetitive strain injury. It is thought that gaming is a prime cause for this injury. But for this to occur the user must be doing the same or similar movements for a long period of time. But to play games requires lots of different actions depending on the situation and there is always time to relax between games. Yes you do get cramp, but this is only after going for a huge marathon, which is not something done by most gamers.

Increased aggressive and violent behaviour. It is believe by many of the ignorant public that violent PC games cause violence in their players. Here is an example the fuels this misbelief:

"When Mr. Kwee died last Saturday, it was in an Internet café. Police believe the violence on the video screen may have tragically spilled into the room. Witnesses say he was shot to death because he was too good -- murdered by someone he had just beaten at the popular game Counter-Strike. Mr. Kwee's death has drawn attention to the darker side of Internet cafés and violent computer games. "It seems that something from the imagination has been taken to the next level and made into reality," Cpl. LeMaitre said. The young men who were defeated by Mr. Kwee may have been so wound up that they crossed the threshold between imagination and reality, he said."

However later in the article it was revealed that the players traded insults. The game is not to blame. It is simply an example of people getting angry at each other to the point of murder. It could just as easily been a chess game. One gamer got it right when he said that "They should focus more on gun control than game control".

Damage to personal health and a more sedentary lifestyle. Although gamers do spend a lot of time playing their games, they do do other things. Quite a large percentage of gamers play sport, go out with friends and do their schoolwork/work. The sedentary lifestyle that is resulting in child and teen obesity is a cultural effect rather than a consequence of gaming. An example to support the ignorant cause is that of a Korean man dying from dehydration and starvation after playing games for 3 days straight at an Internet café. He was obviously very depressed and was using the game to get away from it. The game was not at fault.

Antisocial behaviour, lack of social interaction. This is nonsense. The online world is a complex society. If you don't interact with other you wont last long. Many people develop lifetime friends over the net because they met playing a PC game.

Instead of dwelling on the negatives look at the positives:

Increased hand-eye coordination. Children as young as 8 play these games but this is not looked on well by most of the world and the parents are seen as failures. Quite the opposite, children who play these games develop much better hand-eye coordination than other children.

Increases open-mindedness. Gamers are exposed to many people they might not meet if they hadn't played. These people can be from all around the world and it gives them a chance to learn about other cultures and people that they might not know about.

Knowledge. This is a big one. With the increase in realism, gamers are learning from their games. Learning about history, the military, problem solving, teamwork, economics, and much more. One of Australia's top Counter-strike players said "It makes me want to do it less (join the military) because you can see how bad it can get."

The Fan Factor

The games bring a huge following of loyal fans that becomes a huge online society. Fan sites and communities spring up and people meet on forums and IRC (chat) channels and discuss the game, the world and politics. They organise games and discuss strategies and make their own rules and netiquette. Servers are created by people with the skills and support to run them and hundreds of people play on their creation. Individual people can develop a reputation and a circle of friends they may know online and/or in real life. Often people group together in clans to better their gaming skills and enjoy themselves as a team.

Clanning

Clans are formed in any game. They have their own organization, leaders and rules. Their aim is to better themselves and have fun doing it. Clans can be as small as a 6-person FPS team or several hundred in an RTS clan-community. Clans are constantly competing against each other in "wars", organised team games with admins from servers judging the game. These can get very serious and develop in to pro-gaming teams and compete at world events such as the World Cyber Games in Korea, the home of online gaming, and the Cyber Professional League in the US as well as numerous small competitions in their local area. These can have prizes of up to $1 million. Individuals in solo games can also do this. Quite often clans don't last long however, especially smaller FPS ones. The average life is about 3 months, the split caused either by the loss of leadership, conflict between members or lack of success. People in clans either become good friends or bitter enemies and quite often meet in real life.

LANs

Probably the most social part of the gaming world is LANs. These are organised events run by teams of admins and held in large venues. The players connect their computers and play against each other in the same room, creating some interesting interactions. Its much more fun to play in these as there is no lag (delay caused by distance and hardware online) and you can should at the person you just beat. They can also be as small as a few mates in a living room. The largest in Australia is the WALAN in Perth which can have up to 700 players. The worlds biggest is in Northern Europe with several thousand. These events give players skills for life in networking, working as a team and helping others, particularly the admins who can sometimes gain jobs in companies who see them at work.

Piracy, The Great Catch-22

The biggest problem in the gaming world is software piracy. This is, people possessing software they have copied and not paid for. This can be done using CD burners, downloads and cracks. And the pirates are very good at keeping up with the countermeasures employed by companies. Many leech for the sake of it, because they can do it for free any enjoy it without paying. Other do it to check out the game to see if it is worth buying, but many do it because they just can't afford it. It's a catch-22 in that companies say the price is high because of the pirates and pirates say if the price wasn't so high they wouldn't need to do it. Many theories have been thought up but there is really no solution for both sides.

Making and Playing the Games

The hardware required to make the game is often less than what gamers use to play it. This is because most of the work is text based, typing in code, which can be done on as small as a P166MHz. But other parts, such as the creation of art and animation, use high-end programs that require extremely fast PCs. The games vary in what they need but it tends to be higher than the text writers but lower than the animation computers. However for better performance most gamers use computers well above what is required.

Job Opportunities

There are a variety of jobs available in the industry. The pro-gamers mentioned before are professional players who compete in international events and win prive money and are also sponsored by companies who are given advertising by the players.

Game designers, programmers, artists and the list goes on are needed for game making companies like id and valve and for the publishing companies such as Microsoft and Electronic Arts. These normally require a Computer Science course at university. Reporters who run news sites for games can also be sponsored by companies. There are many ways to get a job in the industry and get a lot of money, such as the id CEO.


Future Trends

The increase in the popularity of realism in games looks set to increase the production of realistic games. But the market and gamer opinion can change rapidly and something new could come up. It's a chaotic system and will continue to be so. The games will keep getting larger, more realistic in their graphics, more powerful and definitely more popular. In 10 years it will be completely different.

You're entitled to your own opinion, even if it's wrong.